One of the
downsides to being self-employed is it can be hard to make a distinction
between when you’re working and when you’re not, and have other people
understand that just because your day-to-day life may not be as obviously
structured as someone with a nine-to-five job, that doesn’t mean you still
don’t have to spend a large portion of your day doing what needs to be done,
uninterrupted.
In recent years,
I’ve made more of a concerted effort to have a clear stage in the day when I
essentially clock off, mainly to alleviate stress and to give myself some
downtime. I’ve got better at it, but only to a point. Today, I haven’t been
successful, what with chasing stuff for Edinburgh on-and-off all day, trying to
finalise the few remaining Spring Mostly Comedy line-ups (which included a
phone conversation with an agent past 6:00pm to confirm a big act for one of
our St Albans dates, and then submitting the event to go on sale literally a
few minutes ago) and responding some comedy club-related email enquiries. It’s
now gone 11:00pm and I’m still at it; writing this only minutes after editing
the Mostly Comedy website; something I’ve been tinkering with all day.
I could do with
reining things in again before they get stupid, but I’m always more inclined to
do tasks now rather than leaving them until later, in the misplaced belief that
this will give me more free time in the future, which it never does. On top of
this, it’s not as if I have the benefit of an uninterrupted day, as if I don’t
respond to messages in daylight hours, they start to clog my mind like furred
arteries (though that may be hyperbolic).
The trick is to
give yourself boundaries, which is where I often fail. Right now, I’d like to
be reading before bed, but instead, I’m trying to justify myself in this blog;
trying to write something well that expresses my feelings succinctly, while
also filling a page. I really don’t want to do this if it’s
counterproductive, which is why I’m now signing off: call it progress, if you like.